Tilly took no offense. She had a good disposition even though the price mark was attached to everything she said. She turned toward Harvey and smiled blandly.
Carrie Laire was quite as excited as Tilly.
“Did you know that Mrs. Laurens is coming and Judge Creswell and Colonel Evans? Why, but I’m all worked up over it. I have a piano solo, and I just know I’ll break down. Do you know any of them? You may thank your stars that you’re not on the program. Judge Creswell is awful famous. Have you any judge in your family? What did your father do?”
Just an instant, Beth’s face flushed. She did not wish to make an enemy of Carrie, yet she could not put up with these questions. She stiffened her quivering lip and said lightly, “Are you merely curious, Carrie, or do you wish the information?” Her companion turned to look at her. Beth continued, “I’ll take a tablet and write out all the information about me that you may ever need—age, height, weight, and everything else.”
“Why, Beth Wells, you are just as hateful as you can be. You know that I only ask you because I’m interested in you, and then you turn on me and say such sharp things.”
The conversation was interrupted by the gong. The girls moved slowly toward the assembly room, and were taking their time, when Miss Hanscom rapped sharply with her ruler. She was a rigid disciplinarian, who could not discriminate between the magnitude of offense. She had been in the Farwell schools for five years. Her work had been strenuous. She had fought her own way, against heavy odds. The result was that she was hard in manner, self-sufficient and not a little aggressive.
Pupils always spoke of how well she had taught them, but not one had ever said that she had awakened sympathy. She was nervous now and spoke sharply, for from her window she had seen two touring cars slow up at the curb, and she knew that visitors were “upon them.”
CHAPTER XI.
Miss Hanscom was nervous when she called the school to order. Her voice was sharp and her body rigid as steel. Her state of mind was felt all over the room. The silence was ominous. It was not that of a healthy, well-disciplined set of boys and girls. It was a condition impelled by fear.
The girls sat bolt upright, not daring to glance at the door through which the visitors were being ushered by Miss Ward, the vice-principal. The boys twisted the tops of the ink wells or sat with their hands deep in their pockets, trying their best to appear unconcerned, while their eyes were anywhere but upon the visitors.